Nico Grace District Six

Just by looking at the frail, depressed, blind boy in the District Six medical research facility, nobody would ever guess that he aided in the construction of many buildings around the district. In his now long gone prime, Nico worked with his father in construction. He was strong, healthy, and nimble; but now it is easy to count his ribs and see that he is far from healthy. The ninety pound, four foot eight youth can barely lift fifty pounds. His skin has turned papery white beneath his freckles for the absence of sunlight for four years and his thick black hair is tangled and messy for the absence of a comb. Nico’s eyes are bright blue, but he never looks anyone in the eye, choosing instead to keep his head held low over his slouching shoulders. He has thin lips, a bony face with sunken in cheeks and crooked teeth that he often shows in a strange expression that is meant to be a smile. At the end of his bony legs, Nico has small feet with long toes that make very little noise when he moves. He has long, bony fingers that he pops and twiddles often.

As a patient at the medical research facility, Nico does not have much of a selection in terms of clothing. Most of the time he sports a timeless and always fashionable hospital robe. He still has the sweatshirt and jeans that he wore when he first arrived at the research hospital, but real clothes are typically reserved for special occasions. Nico also wears a copper ring with a blue stone that looks like an eye that his mom bought him when he left home. Nico is firmly against shoes of any kind. After all, since he only ever walks on the smooth hospital floors, there is not much he could step on to hurt his feet. Socks on the other hand are an entirely different story. After his first day as a human lab rat, the young Mr. Grace realized that socks would prove invaluable to protect his toes from the horror that is cold tile flooring. In the last five years, socks have been the lone item on Nico’s birthday and Christmas lists, so he has managed to accumulate a sizeable collection of fuzzy footwear. The biggest thing Nico has to look forward to is getting to pick out which pair of socks to wear for the day.

Nico is socially awkward. For the last four years, he has only had contact with doctors and the occasional fellow patient. He is inept when it comes to some social conventions such as shaking hands, using gestures, or the importance of facial expressions. Since he has not been able to witness the nuances of any of these since he was too young to care, Nico is incredibly easy to read. He is often blunt, but not because he wants to be mean, but because he hasn’t had enough contact with others to understand the significance of tact. Nico has a lot of time to himself, and without books, television, or toys to entertain him, he spends most of his time listening to the small radio that the doctors let him have and thinking. He does that allot. Nico likes to ask why. “Why am I the one to go blind? Why is Dr. Shilling always sad? Why does gelatin jiggle as it does? Why can the Capitolites like they are better than the district people? All of this thinking has led to the formation of a very strong moral code. Nico tries to base all of his actions off of what he determines to be the good thing to do.

Nico loves people. He likes to talk and make friends with everyone he meets. When someone talks to him he is good at making them feel like the most important person in the world. Nico is loyal and patient. It is not hard to deceive Nico because he trusts just about everybody. He also really enjoys music. The thing Nico misses most about being able to see is color. Music is like color for his ears. Nico is always listening to music or humming or singing. He has made it to the point where it is incredibly difficult for him to think without background music.

Nico suffers from a major inferiority complex. When he was young his dad would heckle him for being too weak. Now that he is blind, not only has any muscle mass that he may have once possessed gone making him even weaker, but now he is “disabled.” He knows that he will probably never amount to very much. At best he could a panhandler asking for money on the street and at worst, he would stay in the hospital for the rest of his life. He tries not to let his situation get him down, but sometimes it is very difficult. Between the statements of his father and doctors, Nico has been convinced that he is useless, expendable, a burden to everyone who has to take care of him. Nico likes to think about someone who needs him instead of the other way around. But while he may fantasize about bringing food home for his family or helping a sick friend, if he ever was seriously relied on by another, he would be petrified that he would not be able to do much for them because he would be incessantly worrying about letting them down like he has his father.

Nico is the only child of a prominent construction worker and a fledgling physicist. By the time he was four, Nico knew that he wanted to be a builder just like his dad. The most exciting day of his life was on his seventh birthday when he was allowed to go to work building houses and his father changed the name of his business to Grace & Son Construction. At first Nico could only do small jobs such as carrying materials and tools, but he quickly proved himself to be an exceptional builder. Even though he was small, he was strong enough to haul loads of lumber to where it needed to be used and he was nimble and light enough to do most of the work in the rafters. Together, the Graces managed to get their family owned company on the map and were landing jobs building and maintaining labs and government buildings as well as homes.

But the family’s newfound success would not last long. About halfway through Nico’s tenth year, Nico had an accident. He was working on the rafters of a new store when he simply stepped off and fell to the ground. When asked what happened Nico said that he couldn’t see where to step. He also complained about everything being blurry, but parents just assumed that he suffered a mild concussion when he fell and put him back to work. It only took a couple of weeks back on the job for Nico to fall off a roof. This left his family seriously concerned, so they took him to an optometrist to see if anything was really wrong with his eyes.

Lo and behold, the doctor discovered that Nico was in the final stages of juvenile onset glaucoma. The doctor predicted that Nico had only about three months left of eyesight before he went totally blind. The worst part of the prognosis was that there were no proven medications on the market to help the ten year old. Nico’s father took the news harder than anyone. He was outraged that he would be losing a valuable apprentice and that he would get stuck with a son who would not be capable of doing much of anything. The doctor did mention that there was one glimmer of hope. A medical research hospital was looking for test subjects for a few new medicines. If Nico was willing to leave home to be poked and prodded by a gaggle of doctors, he might be able to help them find a way to get his sight back. Mrs. Grace vehemently objected to her son being turned into an experiment, but her husband was eager to try anything to get his old son back.

Twelve days after his eleventh birthday, Nico saw the blurry outline of his parents for the last time as he left for the research hospital. A few weeks after he was admitted, Nico was not able to see anything at all. It didn’t take long for the doctors to give up on healing Nico, but instead of letting him go home, they decided to do other experiments with a helpless blind boy. Swarms of psychologists flocked to his room to determine the emotional effects of going blind. The audiologists came next to see how long it would take for his ears to compensate for his vision loss. Then came neurologists and cardiologists, and hematologists and a grand assortment of quacks of all shapes, sizes, and specialties that were eager to use Nico as a test subject for whatever struck their fancies.

In the last four years, Nico has been outside on exactly three occasions. All three were days to go stand in a crowded area and listen to hear two names called out. To Nico, the lung full of fresh air that he gets when he steps outside for a Reaping make the days that are horrifying for most District Six kids even better than Christmas.

Nico’s mom visits him often, but she is always alone. Nico’s father has practically disowned him due to his “unforgivable imperfection.” Despite, the fact that his dad has turned his back on him, Nico will always wish to hear his voice again. He misses his dad even more than he misses color, or knowing where he is going, or even sight itself.

Nico holds on to hope that someday he will get to leave his sterile prison. He is pretty much sure he isn’t going to see again, but maybe they will decide to let him go. Or maybe Nico will be able to notice an opportunity to escape. Deep down he knows that escape is not only implausible, but a downright bad idea. Without a trade, or the ability to defend himself, Nico would not be able to survive for a week outside the facility. But still… it would be so nice to be outside breathing fresh air and hearing chirping birds… It would be very hard to pass up a chance to get away.